Shweta, an eighth-class student, is chit-chatting with her friend in the school bus; they choose to stand by an empty seat.
The bus’s engine crackles and starts running as the driver takes his seat. The boys standing near the back door are talking loudly. With more and more students boarding the bus, it becomes a happy noisy site.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP
Shweta is searchingly looking at the back door while pretending to be fully engrossed in the conversation.
CUT TO:
INT. SCHOOL BUS – DAY
A boy enters the school bus from the back door; his friends address him as ‘Raghu’; they immediately start discussing something.
CUT TO:
Shweta’s eyes are now fixed at Raghu; she even stops pretending to listen to what her friend is saying. Funnily, her friend doesn’t notice.
CUT TO:
Raghu, while listening to his chirpy friends, turns to look at Shweta just for a second and then turns back again.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP
Shweta, with a tinge of anger in her eyes, glares at Raghu. This time her friend also notices it. The bus grunts and sluggishly starts moving.
ZOOM OUT
Raghu turns to see her again and when he does, right at that moment, Shweta quickly switches her place with her confused friend.
Taking Shweta’s side, the bus swayed to take a turn on the road, giving this switch a rhythmic touch.
Shweta, with her back towards Raghu, now can’t see him but is smiling as if she has somehow defeated Raghu in a game.
Raghu, somewhat baffled, stares at Shweta in the background and we hear a voice –
“Is it ready yet, is it ready now?” [Source – Pixabay]
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Like a quick meal that you make yourself, yes, yourself, standing in the kitchen, looking for items, finding none, finding some, maybe it is not something you regularly do or maybe you do it regularly but always in a rush, you add a pinch of salt after applying butter or vice-versa, the heat is too much or too low, you fix it, but after slightly burning your fingertips, and when this meal makes you wait, oh, for howsoever quick it is, it still needs time, you think of brewing a hot cup of tea or coffee, hustle and bustle, tin-tin-tinaa-tuk-tun-tunaa, and the quick meal along with a hot beverage when tasted and sipped, you feel full and good, it is a buttery sweet moment.
You suddenly also start to feel confident about life in general.
Oh, but when you return to the kitchen after finishing the meal, the anxious shelf, the sticky stubborn utensils and crumbles all over the place stare at you in cold anticipation – now or later, late evening or tomorrow morning, my turn or roommate’s turn, or, or, or the maid’s?
You suddenly feel late, like it is only the washing dishes and cleaning shelf bit that stands between you and the attainment of your dream.
I guess, the dish is ready, dear Rabbit.Bon appétit! No, I won’t join, I am fasting today. Goodbye! [Source – Pixabay]
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If you very often do the cleaning part too, not just as a chore, your cooking abilities will bloom, like a wild vine that climbs and trails wondrously without worry, much more than it does when you stick to a rough routine like a straight, pruned plant in a plastic pot.
While a plant even in a plastic pot is rich, full of warmth and it rules, we tend to limit ourselves to a routine too easily, especially if it is comfortably dull.
Kitchen work is all about exuberance, love, patience and meditation that serves best when mixed with prudence.
Cooking and cleaning is a complex task; your kitchen is no less than a PhD student’s lab, yet truly welcoming, forgiving and accepting.
Anyone’s progress happens only gradually and is incomplete without the cleaning part.
Steadily, if you keep going, you’ll learn when to add a pinch of salt, before or after applying the butter, without burning your fingertips.
And you’ll get used to the tricky teasing waiting part, you’ll know it adds great value, and you’ll see, when it’s time, how grandly patience prepares a rich dish.
A happy piece! Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. – Wikipedia [Photo by Motoki Tonn on Unsplash]
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For a better experience, listen to the wonderful, magical tracks before reading on –
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Listen to Little Talks here –
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‘Cause though the truth may vary This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore…
Little Talks, Of Monster and Men
And this journey forward that seems uncertain, unforgiving, perilous, and so lonely transforms into a key – a key that unlocks both the Pandora’s box of adversities and the heart’s orchestra.
String, woodwind, brass and percussion music, always on stand-by, ready to win-over the adversities melodiously, has given the heart’s orchestra a good name.
What if the monster charges with an army or is two-headed or many eyed or has tentacles? Hey-hey, hey-ho, the key that unlocks, also locks… it is all up to you and your heart’s orchestra performance.
Psst! Listen, all monsters aren’t evildoers, but they are music lovers for each one has a heart. Good luck!
Listen to King And Lionheart here –
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And as the world comes to an end I’ll be here to hold your hand Cause you’re my king and I’m your lionheart
King and Lionheart, Of Monsters and Men
And this journey that seems to have ended with our destruction, our death, and yet alive, we silently stare, scar-faced and overwhelmed, at our sacrifice blooming at the right place, at the right time…
Tired steps befriend the trodden grass… and at last the haunting echoes fail… the Lionheart rises again.
Listen to Dirty Paws here –
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The bees had declared a war The sky wasn’t big enough for them all The birds, they got help from below From dirty paws and the creatures of snow
Dirty Paws, Of Monsters and Men
And in the middle of a war, when you turn around to see and cannot distinguish between the mad faces, you become one with them and fight fiercely until you remember, you too are a creature that breathes.
Breathe, breathe, breathe and continue for that is the call…
Listen to Love Love Love here –
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Oh, ’cause you love, love, love When you know I can’t love You love, love, love When you know I can’t love You love, love, love When you know I can’t love you
Love Love Love, Of Monsters and Men
And what hurts the most in this forgotten life of ours… unfulfilled love that can be fulfilled and yet…
When love love love turns you into a piece of Kintsugi pot, smile for now you have been repaired.
Listen to Mountain Soundhere –
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Of Monsters and Men is an amazing indie rock band from Iceland. They have a knack for amalgamating folk stories, emotions, joy, pain and the magical into their songs that almost every time matches with the universe’s wavelength.
Listening to their music is like sitting around a bonfire on a bright winter night… and like playing with the breeze in the summers.
Dancing and chirping, posing, frolicking, a bird –now on this branch, now on that – living in Godard’s city in black and white 1957, knows not the language and yet doubts Patrick. And rightly so for that philanderer never hesitates; quick-witted, he charms the ladies into believing him and his stories and “well, it is just a coffee date”, he says casually.
Only later do they find – Charlotte and Veronique – why All the Boys Are Called Patrick, because they were talking about the same Patrick, that is why, and look here he goes, in a taxi, with another beauty.
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Patrick (Source – Le Cinema Club)
Ahm Ahm! (Source –
roseydoux.tumblr.com)
Charlotte and Veronique (Source – Le Cinema Club)
’64,’65,’66
The birdie dares and continues living while in Godard’s city in three back-to-back years – ’64,’65,’66 – the voices – twice in black and white and once in colour – speak the language of simultaneity… and of confusion, surplus, discrimination… expressing it through every medium, especially the medium called love.
Just see, simultaneously in love, out of love, whimsically, the next moment knowingly, executing the plan and fate’s execution, the Band of Outsiders – Arthur, Odile, Franz – dancing the Madison dance, breaking the Louvre record, firing gunshots, breakaway… winning and losing simultaneously.
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The name of the production company ‘A Band Apart’ founded by Quentin Tarantino Et al. comes from this film by Godard. (Source – Wikipedia)
Dance ‘the Madison dance’ along with the trio –
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The Louvre record–
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And meet the fool, Pierrot the Fool, who runs away in the search of and is chased by meaning. Along with his ex-girlfriend, Marianne, he protects everything new that he has accepted and acts, confidently and in confusion simultaneously.
Poor Pierrot’s search ends, finally, it does; he finds, though quite late, that he was wrong about Marianne and right about the bomb. But as said before, he was so late that… dhamaka!!!
Next year, in Godard city, the questions ‘he’ asked ‘her’ and the questions ‘she’ asked ‘him’ were all documented; the answers were young, naïve and in late teens and early twenties. Fun and spirit jarred the running time.
A singer, her two girlfriends, a lover, his journalist friend, elections, peace in Vietnam and everything in fashion voted in the favour of 1966 and against each other.
Starring the child from The 400 Blows, now all grown up and Chantal Goya, a Ye-Ye singer playing a Ye-Ye singer. (Source – Wikipedia)
Godard’s dog Roxy Mieville plays an important role in the film. (Source – UniFrance)
Jump to the year 2014!
Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language (Adieu au Langage), a 3D essay film is a mind-boggling experiment.
Speaking about all that we encounter in life – through a car’s windshield, superimposed images, from a stray dog’s POV, in the colour red, rose red – the narrator speculates, maybe, regarding the dearth of something crucial at the centre and our unobservant impatient nature.
Maybe it shows also the fast culture that admires and nurtures weak concentration. Maybe we have missed the train… but then we can always walk if we remember how to that is.
The fun part is that ‘adieu’ in some parts of Switzerland where French is spoken, the parts where the film was shot, may mean both goodbye and hello.
“One of the best films ever made” – Sight and Sound magazine (Source – Wikipedia)
Time-travel again!
Godard’s Paris, the year 1960; a criminal, Michel, is absconding and in love with Patricia. The boulevards, narrow lanes, tricky corners, buildings, stairs, doors, rooms, windows are together mocking – in black and white – the seriousness attached to delayed decisions, and also, questioning the pettiness shown towards whims.
Before becoming a news headline, Michel lives a simple life of a goon with a free future in vision and a blurry present; blurry but sweet and tender, like a half-dream seen in a half-sleepy state.
Patricia, an aspirer, a daydreamer, not a native, asks a lot of questions –
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“Have you been to Monte Carlo?”“No, Marseilles.”
“What is a horoscope?”“Horoscope? The Future. I wanna know the future. Don’t you?” “Sure.”
“Why are you so sad?”“Because I am.”“That’s silly.”
“What would you choose between grief and nothing?” “Grief is stupid. I’d choose nothing. It’s no better, but grief is a compromise. You have to go for all or nothing. I know that now.”
“What is your greatest ambition in life?” “To become immortal… and then die.”
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See, she asks such questions and gets such replies from Michel and others, like Parvulesco, the French writer/ philosopher she interviews in the film. Not always coherent and never definite, the answers make Patricia smile.
The car, the coffee, the cigarette, the smoke, the sprint, the bullet gradually push Michel and Patricia to either take a decision or act whimsically.
They do both – a decision is made, a whim wins over – but the timing and consequences differ. The only similarity is that they both make a news headline-worthy move!
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A simplified trailer of a mosaic film –
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A simple storyline that Godard twisted and moulded anew every day before shooting, Breathless’ distinctive visual style, editing, character portrayal and life-like quirky humour made it one of the leading films of the metamorphic French New Wave cinema.
The film’s originality and unique construction, after so many eras, continue to reform the cinema.
Experimenting, exploring, challenging fearlessly, Jean-Luc Godard postulated, presented and celebrated a new film philosophy; trying to build a bond with the viewer, his films demand attention, awareness especially if a political joke is being shared or if lovers are looking London talking Tokyo or if life is shown getting a speeding ticket or if an absurd gesture appears twice and the viewer tries to copy just for fun…
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Godard pushing cameraman Raoul Coutard (on a wheelchair for a tracking shot) during the shooting of Breathless. (Source – The Hindu)
“Au revoir, à la prochaine”, said the bird in French i.e. ‘goodbye, until next time’, for the bird has subscribed to an OTT platform where some of Godard’s films are streaming.
Cinema lovers, what’s the time?
Time to imitate Michel’s gesture from ‘Breathless’ where he is shown imitating his favourite American actor, Humphrey Bogart…
The river… sketching its way ahead… [Source – Pixabay]
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
by Langston Hughes
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I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
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I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Rivers – streams, creeks, brooks or rivulets – love to flow; flowing towards a sea, lake, an ocean or another river, and at times also drying out. Rivers love to flow just like life.
Most of the earlier civilisations prospered when they settled around rivers, channelizing the same love when drinking its fresh water.
And when mankind sat in a circle around the fire and created stories – of the sun, the moon, the thunder and the wind – they fostered their imaginations and decided to pass on the love running in their blood to a lovely supreme one.
Different supreme ones took the centre stage at different places and myriad dramas unfolded that the rivers watched quietly, flowing, gushing with joy every moment.
Resisting neither the rocks nor filth, accepting the dead and plastic bottles alike, it continues to flow… for now.
Still like a mirror, moving like a reflection… [Source – Pixabay]
Langston Hughes in his poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers connects the human soul with the world’s ancient rivers; the hands that cupped to drink water, the feet that crossed the river, whatever race it belonged to, felt the same damp calmness every single time they drank water and crossed the river.
Written during the early twentieth century when African Americans struggled to achieve equality and justice, Hughes, presenting a powerful historical perspective in this poem, emphasises the link between his ancestors, the ancient rivers and the rest of the human civilisation.
The Euphrates, often believed to be the birthplace of human civilisation, the Congo, powerful and mysterious, that saw the rise of many great African kingdoms, the magical Nile that carries with poise the secrets of the great Egyptian pyramids, the folklorist Mississippi that shared here the tales of Abraham Lincoln and American slavery – shows how rivers carry the past in its depth, carrying it always with love.
And the one who sees with love can sense the connection between rivers and souls, between them and us; we all started this journey together, the rivers are a testimony.
“I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
Experience and history, though often oppressive, have not extinguished but rather emboldened the development of a soul, the birth of an immortal self, the proud ‘I’ that now speaks to all who will listen.
Love, the key to living a fulfilling life, the path that leads to the real you, this emotion called love is universal and free.
An enigmatic thing, love is everywhere – in and around you and me, in our blue planet’s core, it is the main component of every heavenly body and the equally mysterious dark matter. Why else must the dark matter be dark if not for love?
Love – the power that knows the art of giving only too well, that takes pleasure in calmness, that patiently and leisurely creates, that also manoeuvres without light, that is fathomless – humbly colours the dark matter dark.
Who ventures in the unknown, hoping to pierce through the darkness like a sharp arrow, in a speed that surpasses the twang of its bow?
One who is courageous enough to Love.
Landing back on earth, let us see how Regina Spektor has perceived Love and what rhythm has she given to her definitions of Love.
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Listen to ‘Blue Lips’ –
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He stumbled into faith and thought “God, this is all There is” The pictures in his mind arose And began To breathe And all the gods in all the worlds Began colliding on a backdrop of blue
Blue lips Blue veins
He took a step But then felt tired He said, “I’ll rest A little while” But when he tried To walk again He wasn’t A child And all the people hurried past Real fast and no one ever smiled
Blue lips Blue veins Blue, the color of our planet from far, far away…
Regina Spektor
No one said that it will not hurt, that there will not be any sacrifices, that we will not forget and misconstrue, no one said Loving is easy and so we failed, repeatedly we failed.
But why lament when we can try again?
As humans, all we need to fully revel in Love is our ability to breathe and our home planet that looks blue from far, far away.
Regina Spektor believes in Love and Loves our beautiful blue planet; it is evident in her songs.
Listen to ‘Eet’ –
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It’s like forgetting The words to your favorite song You can’t believe it You were always singing along It was so easy And the words so sweet You can’t remember You try to feel a beat eeet eeeet eeet…
Regina Spektor
‘Eet’ is a backspace key that you find on typewriters that allows you to type over the previous letter if you make a mistake.
Mistakes and life, life and mistakes, go well together if you are truly in love (no matter with whom/what). Even if you stumble, forget or lose, you will still try, sooner or later, for love will not allow you to rest.
It is strangely powerful, this emotion; it attacks with a strong gust of memories and then waits, it tickles with happy thoughts and then waits… waiting as if it knows it will win in the end.
If you ever think of using the ‘eet’ key, do try the Regina Spektor way of editing – turn the mistakes into musical notes.
Listen to ‘Better’ –
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If I kiss you where it’s sore If I kiss you where it’s sore Will you feel better, better, better? Will you feel anything at all?
Born like sisters to this world In a town blood ties are only blood If you never say your name out loud to anyone They can never ever call you by it
If I kiss you where it’s sore If I kiss you where it’s sore Will you feel better, better, better? Will you feel anything at all?
Regina Spektor
Just like opening an old album, with slightly tattered and folded edges, we are greeted with some golden memories – happy and sweet and sad; sad because we cannot travel back to meet the ones we have lost.
And yet we go on, asking hypothetical questions, somehow reliving the moment mentally, grasping the answer that we know will work, at least for now.
Just like opening an old album, ‘Better’ by Regina Spektor gives us such a feeling.
Listen to ‘How’ –
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Time can come and wash away the pain But I just want my mind to stay the same To hear your voice To see your face There’s not one moment I’d erase You are a guest here now
So baby, how Can I forget your love? How can I never see you again?
Regina Spektor
One always remembers sad endings and unanswered questions, but why?
So that one keeps walking, searching and living more sensitively… maybe.
Coming soon – Regina Spektor’s Musical World and Addressing the Hero – Part IV
Like flowers threaded to form a sheet, woven intricately, the free white petals settling in a designed pattern, accepting the arrangement with joy, like an endless beaded wave of fragrant flower-colours, the ragas also weave intricately musical framework that evokes fragrant feelings in a quiet listener’s mind.
Just like the perfection-loving flowers – the humble sepal, the vibrant petal, the ambitious anther – the ragas too know how to bloom to perfection. Capturing the exact mood that exudes the season’s essence perfectly, the ragas effortlessly scent time making it beautifully appreciable.
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The scented time celebrates the raga – in Vilambit laya (slow tempo), Madhya laya (medium tempo), Drut laya (fast tempo) – accepting every melodic improvisation, evolving with each performance, never bothering with change, rather ushering it with consistent Riyaz (practice).
Overwhelming calculations keep the ragas free from vegetating and from the burden of the past that at times tries to confine its spirit, but almost always the spirit remembers to break free.
The many notations, the Swara, bring forth incessant improvisations, giving space to every emotional twist, forming an intricate, fragrant Mandala.
The ragas symbolise, like a flower threaded sheet, intricacies of life… and more.
Lat uljhi suljha ja balam
Piya more haath mein mehndi lagi hai
Lat uljhi suljha ja balam…
Mathe ki bindiya bikhar rahi hai
Apne hi haath laga ja balam
Lat uljhi suljha ja balam…
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(Translation – Disentangle my hair, dear beloved/ I have applied henna on my hands/ So come and disentangle my hair, dear beloved/ The bindiya too is spreading on my forehead/ Correct it for me with your own hands, dear beloved/ Disentangle my hair, dear beloved)
This Bandish* in raga Bihag decorates time with a jasmine-rich fragrant emotion that vehemently values love and life.
*Bindiya – a colourful dot mark worn between the eyebrows, especially by married Hindu women.
*Bandish – a composition in Hindustani classical music.
Listen to a melodious version of this bandish now.
Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on.
Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
What is the purpose of existence, what is this feeling of love, what makes colours so harmonious, so arresting?
The complexities, the insatiable desires, the mind games, what helps and what hinders, how do we know?
What is to be said, heard and done before death?
The film weaves a beautiful pattern of such thoughts, but subtly, charmingly that one gets truly absorbed in the flow of the story and does not feel staggered or burdened at all.
The story is exceptionally close to reality even though the style of its narration is truly poetic. It is simple and complex, romantic and mystifying, colourful and rough, complete and incomplete.
Presenting life from a woman’s point of view, talking about the role of a woman in a family, sharing her aspirations and wishes with us, the entire story thus, inherently is full of warmth, colour and calmness, making the love palpable for the viewer.
The best way to describe Gabbeh would be to call it a dream. It is a folk tale, a myth and yet an unembellished raw saga; hazy, vibrant, unreal and real at the same time.
Gabbeh is an experience, a dream that you must see one day.
Written and Directed by – Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Gabbeh – Shaghayeh Djodat, Music by – Hossein Alizadeh, Cinematography – Mahmoud Kalari, Edited by – Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Language – Persian.
Keep walking! Walking? Together! Together?/
For a bright future – said the leader,/
Sitting comfortably on the throne.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
Also, a humble request to the new subscribers to check the spam folder after subscribing. Silly (but necessary) confirmation emails often land there instead of the bright inboxes. Merci!
Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
P.S – Supporting a storyteller is good for the world’s health (and undoubtedly, for the storyteller’s health as well). Shower some love via Patreon.
Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Arthdal Chronicles is a South Korean fantasy drama TV series that takes us back to the Bronze Age in a mythical land named Arth, where different human species and tribes struggle to be on the top of the power pyramid.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Universe’s a Disciplined Place
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
